Campaigners across America are resorting to padlocks and metal cages to protect their 'leccy meters, convinced that the smart versions will damage their health.
The Georgia Senate is busy passing a bill allowing customers to opt out of having a smart meter fitted, and without cost, but some of the locals are concerned that …

Page:

Dumb meters for dumb people

Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

The most hilarious part of this issue is that most of the dumb meters in question already have radio transmitters. So do most gas meters and water meters. The "meter readers" just drive down the street and a RF scanner in the car reads the meters.

Re JC2: Dumb meters for dumb people

"...I've no idea what makes you pretend to know otherwise."

The fact that I've owned 3 houses over the last 20 years and all of their water, gas & electricity meters had RF transmitters for remote reading. That's 9:0. One house was in Massachusetts, one in Florida, and one in California. In most States, meters have to be replaced by the utilities every few years. Where I live now, gas meters are replaced every 5 years, water & electricity every 10 years.

The utilities have been switching to remote meter reading over the last decade or two is because one meter reader can read a huge number of meters compared to one who has to walk around people's yards.

Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

"Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

Actually no most of the dumb meters don't have radio transmitters and I've no idea what makes you pretend to know otherwise."

Bzzt! - No cookie for you!!!

It depends on the area, but simple usage status radios of meters have been in use as early as 1978! (the Metretek, Inc. AMR). Of the last three places I lived, two were definitely AMR equipped. So yes, it is in use, has been for decades, and you, as well as millions of other the uninformed, simply don't know what you are talking about. Frustrating, as people complaining about such things distract us from real problems.

Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

Not just for dumb people it's also for the ones who don't want to deal with the hassle of spending months complaining to SoCal Edison trying to convince them that you didn't actually use more than 3 times as much electricity during the month they "upgraded" the meter than any other month before or since the "upgrade". In fact I could probably show I wouldn't use that much electricity even if I left the door open and the AC on during the whole of August.

Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

Hey! Leave the 'electro-sensitivity loons' alone. You, me, we're all electro-sensitive. I'm especially so. I find that any kind of contact whatsoever with a mere 230V AC, even the sort that comes out of the socket on the wall, really knocks me off my feet for the rest of the day. How do you think that'd feel, every day of your life? I can tell you, it soon begins to pall.

Now then, I must see to getting that bedside lamp earthed properly. Been meaning to do it for years.

Re: Re JC2: Dumb meters for dumb people

> In most States, meters have to be replaced by the utilities every few years

I think it's too late to worry about them ripping you off then. Two of my three meters are as old as the house - 17 years. The water meter was replaced a couple of years ago. What is the logic in replacing the meters so frequently? Lousy build quality?

Re: AndrueC: Dumb meters for dumb people

"What is the logic in replacing the meters so frequently? Lousy build quality?"

Maybe you should move to a less corrupt locale, where the politicians actually believe they serve the people who elected them...

I live in a State with very strong utility regulation and consumer protections. My understanding from talking to the gas company is that the requirement (for the gas meter) was a combination of safety and proof of meter calibration. The old meter gets refurbished and recalibrated, then is placed back into the pool of meters to go back into service. My water meter was replaced last year, and they claimed it was to insure calibration, and again the old meter gets refurbished and eventually placed back into service. I presume the electricity meter replacement has a similar rational.

I've no doubt that part of the periodic meter replacement is for the utilities protection. If nothing else, by replacing the meters every decade or half-decade, they can inspect the installation for tampering.

Re: Re JC2: Dumb meters for dumb people

Did you read the list of states where he's owned houses? The state of taxachusetts, the state retirees from taxachusetts move to because they can't afford taxachuesetts anymore, and the land of fruits and nuts, who incidentally are going bankrupt even faster than Greece, but since they aren't a country all their own, aren't making international headlines.

Re: Smart Meters

Re: Smart Meters

Sounds like an electricity monitor and not a smart meter - smart meter replaces your exisitng electricity meter and is intended to send meter reading automatically via a wireless/mobile connection to remove the need for meter readers to come and read your meter. N.b. in the US (well at least 10-15 years ago when I was there) meter reading must be a significant expenses as PGE read our meter *every* month (as did the water company) - compared to the UK where it seems to be about once every 18-24 months to check that your reading/their estimates are sufficiently accurate

Re: Smart Meters

$300 savings for the company perhaps,

but what about costs incurred having to visit people to measure usage?

Very high levels of shortwave radio signals (we are talking powerful radar here) have been documented to have adverse health effects. I think some people do a linear interpolation between zero effect at zero W to a handful of points of massive problems in the MW range, with little or no data in the intermediate range. I very much doubt that damage at the levels experienced is real. All the symptoms described (including those of the diabetics) could be explained by stress (caused by the fear of the effects of radio signals, perhaps?). BTW, I am not saying the complaints are not real, I am saying that the cause might be different.

Re: All the symptoms described...

Re: $300 savings for the company perhaps,

It always reminds me of the woman who started to feel all these bad things after they installed a GSM antenna next to her home. Some journalists dug a bit in, went to the mobile company, where they found out the antenna wasn't in use yet... It's all in the head ;)

Re: Stick to the topic of the story

Radio transceivers unhealthy?

I have to wonder how many of the people who claim that they are getting sick from having these SmartMeter radio transceivers around also have mobile phones, 802.11b/g/n wireless routers, and cordless landline phones and yet have never experienced any so-called health problems with them.

Re: Radio transceivers unhealthy?

Indeed, given that the SmartMeters use GSM (or CDMA, here in the US) cellular wireless connections exactly the same as the device people hold up to their head for hours at a time, except that the connection is a few seconds per hour and not three inches from their skull, it baffles me how the SmartMeters could be causing health issues that are not already endemic from mobile phones.

However, the people that take issue with the SmartMeters giving the utility company free rein to turn off electrical mains connections during a billing dispute, or accidentally, or while blinded by red tape have an argument that I can sympathize with.

Not writting it off....

If I can't see it with my eyes then it isn't there, isn't hurting me. Scientists and technical people throughout history have acted like that. Surgeons would never wash there hands. 100 years later oops that stuff we couldn't see well...we make sure ER's are clean of it now.

So I DON'T write off the whole issue out of hand without some good amount of UNBIASED time and scientific testing to prove or disprove. For all we know there might be a electronic noise threshold for complex organisms like humans before it begins to cause biological disruptions in them.

Re: Not writting it off....

But how do you prove something is *not* causing something bad to happen? You can't.

As soon as someone comes up with some solid evidence that radio waves cause any of these problems, that's fine. But until then it would be just as valid to claim my cat is the leading cause of global warming as to claim that smart meter emissions are harmful.

Re: Not writting it off....

Look up "softenon" and "thalidomide" ..

Not that I say that the issue is as grave - we simply don't know yet. For all we know, it may even help. The problem is indeed the lack of funds for doing a study which is without bias. A mobile company sponsoring the research doesn't inspire trust in the results, however good the intentions may be - the tobacco companies have taken care of that..

Re: Not writting it off....

Re: Not writting it off....

" But until then it would be just as valid to claim my cat is the leading cause of global warming "

Lets not be silly here. Its been irrefutably shown by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the rise in Global Warming is a direct result to the decline in the number of pirates over the years.

Re: Not writting it off....

Placebo is the only way. It is why that test is done, in many cases people get symptoms when you suggest the idea.

Just like telling people they are looking at an original oil painting makes them say they like it even though its not. The human mind is pretty suggestible, probably why blind taste tests are required too.

Re: Not writting it off....

I posted on a similar article a while back with a simple, effective study that while not 100% infallible should be easy to run and fairly cheap (in terms of equipment; the educations needed to observe the results properly, not so much).

Re: Not writting it off....

Many years ago, they did a study in Philadelphia (I think) and may have demonstrated a correlation between 60cycle RF and cancer. They tracked the cancer rates in a of a row of houses with aboveground power and found that the incidence of cancer peaked at every pole on which there was a transformer.

On the other hand, the coolant in those transformers was later designated toxic waste and had to have special handling....

Re: Not writting it off....

WiFi, Mobile Data, and Smartmeters have a much lower transmit power than Satellites (which have half a kilowatt ERP), but you don't sleep next to the Satellites (or, at least, I don't - I can't vouch for Giles) and by the time they reach your roof you are looking at an RSSI of around -155 dBW - barely above noise floor.

I haven't heard or read anything about what frequencies and transmit power the smart meters are using - but I also haven't been looking. I have read that many of the manufacturers of Smart Meters have already exited the market because they foresee it as being unprofitable.

In WiFi, the maximum output power is less than the amount of allowable leakage around the seal of of a Microwave Oven (which is why your WiFi drops out every time you fire it up).

Personally, I am of a mindset that the power company should not be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with the power that I purchase from them. It is their responsibility to project estimated peak loads and be able to handle them. If they can't, certainly don't want them to be able to remotely shut down the air conditioning and have my servers fry because they overheat. I would rather that the grid goes dark and have everything go to backup generator.

Re: Not writting it off....

I dont sleep next to my electric meter - its 2 floors down in the cellar...but I do sleep next to my mobile phone - on my bedside table. The smart meter is using GSM - my mobile phone has WiFi and 3G on. I'd still worry far more, like others have mentioned about the phone...given that its next to my brain for quite a large amount of time...and if not in use...right next to my chest in my coat pocket, yes, we'll find its a killer technology, literally, in maybe a few decades and a cause of new, currently unknown cancers...but we'll also find that other tech that we've lived around for a long time and these smartmeters ARENT a cause of ill health...and if used right should help save the human population from its own doom (peak oil gone, lack of any natural resources and all that good stuff) - people blocking the install should be charged more and pay for not having smart meters

Subtle mind control

I can't help but think that the objections based on seemingly loony concerns about radio waves and health issues are being presented very vocally to make ANY objection to smart meters seem rediculous, rational people won't want to be associated with the loonies and so will accept smart meters without question.

I love the idea that that the emissions from a smart meter could somehow harm you, but the emissions from all that electrical gear in your house won't. Like those idiots who campaign against mobile phone masts while spending half their time with a mobile phone stuck to the side of their heads and the other half complaining about the lack of signal.